Dipika sets the tone

Dipika Pallikal again started off her 2009 with a bang by reaching the final of the British Junior Open...this is an awesome result where she beat her long time nemesis Heba El Torky in a thrilling 11/9, 14/12, 9/11, 14/12 match. The hard core squash fans will remember her beating Heba in last years final... however this year she meets Malaysian Low Wee Wern in the final. Dipika has beaten Low a couple of time last year but has also lost to her so it will be an exciting match up and all keep their fingers crossed for my girl!!!!!

Dipika has always been very successful in the juniors but she will be the first indian to win back to back British Open's if she can pull it off later on today... 

Am soooo proud of her... she has been working very hard and all the hard work is paying off... on a lighter note she did a shoot for Chanel in the december issue of "Beautiful People" so all those out there it is worth checking out...

Boxing

Boxing has dominated the news (at least on the MCT front ) in the last couple days... the boxers have returned after a good performance at the world championships and have returned heroes. the media again have gone after the federation and it was supposedly brought up in parliament that they were transported in a shabby van from the airport to their hotel. 

R U SERIOUS!!! i am now at least convinced that they don't have better things to talk about in parliament... the truth is that our sportspeople are not treated well but that doesn't encompass one van ride from the airport to the hotel which is maybe 15 mins. 

if they want to make a difference why don't they upgrade the facilities that the athletes live in, the poor quality of food that they are fed and the sub standard quality of life they have in the various camps. They really don't care if they ride in a mercedes or tata indica, what they really want is to be able to live in a nice, clean place that will actually make them a whole lot healthier. 

Dinesh Kumar...the coming out party!!!

so closely following in Akhil's footsteps Dinesh Kumar who got in on a wild card also managed to win. This win is more impressive than akhils because this is the same guy whom he had got pummelled by earlier this year at the Olympics. So Dinesh has shown great poise and actually worked very hard. He is a young boxer who has shown a lot of promise and is also another one of our candidates who has come out of a career threatening injury. So we are proud of him and looking to some gold medlas now. 

AKHIL BRINGS ME OUT OF RETIREMENT :)

akhil kumar has again gone and done something great at the 2008 world cup finals in moscow. this is a tournament that is by invitation only for the world's top 8 boxers and akhil has just beaten german marcel schneider 15:6 and got india it's 1st medal in 14 years at a world cup. akhil has been training hard with our trainer heath matthews and is now up against olympic silver medalist from Cuba. All scores can be seen live on www.aiba.org. 

akhil is a very special athlete for us and he is now brimming with the confidence that he can go all the way. His next bout (semis) is on the 13th so everyone get ready for a good showing. 

later on tonight our other boxer Dinesh Kumar is fighting against an algerian boxer whom he lost to at Beijing. But hey its a new day!!!!! COME ON BOYS!!!!

the young ones beckon....

All the associations are going to be flushed with the funds now with over 700cr being allocated to "prepare"athletes for the commonwealth games... how much of that is really going to make it to the athletes in a timely fashion remains to be seen but it is an enormous amount that could actually (if used correctly) be stretched to the next olympics, i somehow doubt that... regardless this gives us a good opportunity to actually help out the young kids and really get good systems in place so that we have a cycle in place to constantly replace the older ones...
The other heartening thing is that our athletes are so touched by all our support that they are eager to give back in any way they can and so I am going to have akhil scout and find out some young and talented boxers and ofcourse abhinav is eager and ready to help out shooting. So for the first time we can actually groom right from the bottom.... actually "creating" champions right from the ground up is something that i have long tried to achieve and since i am now able to do it with such a great group of people nothing could be better.

REBUILDING!!!!

So have been really really really busy in the last couple of weeks actually getting things started again... for starters Saina has won yet another tournament this one was even bigger than the Philippines open that she won so we are really proud of her and now the goal is to make sure she keeps improving we keep moving forward.
my goal for the next couple of months now is to actually have a good group of juniors in place and have not really done that till now because i have never had a precedent to follow and was not sure whether we were going in the right direction or not and didn't want to waste money but now i have a lot of clarity in at least the sports we have been involved with in the last couple of years and so it is just a matter of putting plans in place.
we are presently trying out 20 young archers in bangalore and hopefully will get a couple of good ones coming out of that. i would like to have the same process in all the other sports while adding more sports to the charter so in the process of doing the research. Any suggestions and tips will be welcome since the more people helping the better.

the road ahead....

my schedule is finally slowing down...was on a 4 day holiday and then had to zip to london to discuss the next steps with Mr. Mittal and family so a post has been long overdue.

Anyway things are looking great in terms of what we have achieved so far but now the bar has been raised for London and am excited at the challenge. 

The key for the next couple of months is getting a good group of athletes and a bigger pool. So there are a few core sports as of right now like shooting, archery and boxing and we need to expand those and try and reach out to as many people as possible. Am going to also go down to the grassroot level and help fund those which should create a good cycle of athletes in a few years. 

It is also imperative that we now reach out to the the other sports where we are not so good and start grooming people for the future. They might not be ready for the London Games but maybe the next ones after that. However it is important for the overall quality of sport in the country and hence am going to be looking into that. 

The sport i am eager to help because i don't believe we are far off is athletics because i feel like there are certain events we can do very well in and it is just a matter of getting the right training. So that is going to be my immediate project.

The archery program has already started with our korean coach having a month long trial for finally selecting the group. It is being held at the Jain School in bangalore which has some of the best facilities in the country.